The sliver, which resolves into a long tumbling length of golden silk rope, practically jumps from its limp fall towards Scour, spinning through the air artfully before tying itself into a pretty little knot in their hand. This may or may not be what using this technique on a falling piece of rope would normally do, but given that this just fell out of the Sun, it would make sense for it to be an exceptional piece of rope.

If they're paying very close attention, they might also notice that the rope appears to have taken some initiative, with a single hairs-breadth thread surreptitiously snaking up along their outstretched arm, across their back, down their other arm, and is just barely touching the stanchion that Scour is holding onto themself.

Oh, wow! They don't notice the anchor thread. They're too busy admiring the rope. It doesn't feel as though they made a breakthrough with the technique, but the rope came to them as easily as a screwdriver which they've called a thousand times.

Scour pulls themself back onto the guardwall, and drops to sit cross-legged next to their radio. They turn the knot this way and that, letting it catch the last of the dying light of day, and the lamps turning on behind them.

"I wonder what you are," they say to themself.

<I'm the Golden Cord!> says a sourceless voice, followed by a somewhat sarcastic-sounding sigh. <A bit of a dud name. My maker was so good at names, I still can't figure out why he only gave Mountain something properly evocative. Anyway! You can call me Gold, or Cord, or 'the' I guess! What's your name, kid?>

Scour startles, not quite falling back off of the wall.

"Ah! Uh. I am Sunlight Scouring the Unworthy From the Face of the World, honored artifact. You can call me Scour -- everyone does," they say. They turn to peer up into the gathering darkness. "Did you fall from the four-times chain?"

<Ooh, 'honored artifact', don't hear that one in every world! Pleasure to meet you Scour! And assuming you mean up there—> a loop of the knot shivers, collapsing inwards a bit, causing part of it bow out in the general direction of chain above them, vaguely reminiscent of someone pointing with their thumb, <then yes. I and my siblings had been brought together and summoned, for the first time in a long while by my reckoning, by some poor fool up there who didn't quite know what they were dealing with. Things got a bit chaotic, and then we were all sent tumbling. I...probably could have held things together, if I wanted, but the person summoning us gave me a bad vibe, so I didn't bother.>

Every world? There are stories, of other worlds. Realms of powerful adventurers and secret treasure. But those are just stories -- in real life, there is only the surface, and the Chains. Then again, in real life artifacts are jealously guarded and hardly ever seen away from their owners. They certainly don't just fall into people's laps.

"Are you really from another world?" they ask. "And, and you've been to multiple others?"

The thought makes them dizzy. This is so much bigger than trying to get the train's timetables fixed.

<Mhm!> One loop of the knot folds over itself a bit, mimicking a person nodding their head. <I've been to more worlds than is really convenient to translate into words, in this language at least. i don't know about my siblings, we didn't much of a chance to chat, but I'd guess they've seen their fair share of sights, too. Don't worry though, in my experience at least it's pretty common for people to be surprised by that. Even in worlds I've been too that knew other worlds exist, it's real rare for them to be aware of the scope of it.>

"Your siblings -- are you all from the same artifact-maker?" they ask. "How many of you are there? Only I've never heard of anyone making more than one," they explain.

<Eh...Sort of? For one thing, there are lots of worlds where making artifacts— not ones that are as powerful as me and my siblings mind you, but certainly still powerful— is downright common. But, even so, our master, rest his thoroughly splintered soul, didn't exactly create us. He found each of us, and used his powers to make us more powerful, and eventually to give us our selves, our minds. Then, before the Dark Ones took him, he scattered us to hopefully put us beyond their reach.>

The Dark Ones sound like the way one of their mother's stories would begin, but if this world is beyond their reach, hopefully they are not about to pose an immediate problem.

"That sounds ... ominous," they remark. "If your master scattered you, is all of you being drawn together by the summoning going to be a problem? Like, make it easier for the Dark Ones to find you or something?"

<Maybe! We haven't been together in the same world for longer than a tiny fraction of a second since our master died, so it's hard to say for certain. But even if we did somehow end up back up in the Dark Ones' domain, as long as we don't stand out too much from the local power level, we should be able to avoid drawing their attention.>

That was not nearly as reassuring as they were hoping.

"I don't know how you compare to the local power level," they say. "Because on the one hand, artifacts are pretty rare, but on the other hand we're technically hanging from one of the most powerful ones right now. The Chain is the Smith's artifact, and it holds up all of the Chain Cities."

<Yeah, I noticed. It's pretty nifty! I might need to put in a little bit of effort to do the same thing, which is a good sign for being able to lay low. What's the status on local healing and time-manipulation artifacts? Since that's what my siblings do, to a first approximation.>

Scour works their jaw a bit, speechless at the implications.

"Ah, um. I think we have pretty good healing?" they offer. "I don't know of any specific healing artifacts, but I wouldn't be surprised if the hospital had one. They can, like, build replacement limbs out of living wood, or close sword wounds without a scar. Time manipulation is just ... only in stories. I've never heard of anything that could do that for real."

There's a mental whistle before Gold replies, <Alright. Needles might have a hard time keeping it subtle, but it'll at least take them a bit to start doing stuff that's really impossible by local standards, assuming they landed on someone willing to use them. Mountain, though, might be more important to get in touch with. He's never really brooked being limited by the Dark Ones anyway, and if his thing is basically unheard of here it's not going to take him long to find someone to wear him.>

"Getting in touch might be hard," they warn. "If the others fell all the way to the surface, I mean. The surface is big. My radio might reach, but it has to be very directional to get that much range, so it wouldn't be any help searching."

<I should be able to tell what direction they're in, if I give it some effort at least, though I don't know if Needles or Mountain have learned to listen for radio signals on their own yet. Still, it might be worth checking, in case either of them has found a wielder who has a radio on them.>

"Radios aren't all that common, but it's definitely worth a shot!" they agree. "Here, I have my compass here somewhere," they continue, rummaging in their pockets.

Eventually they produce a notepad and pencil for recording directions, along with a device looking a bit like a cross between a compass and a sextant that clips onto the edge of the guardwall to align itself north/south.

"If you show me what direction they're in, I can send a message to Swift letting him know I've been interrupted, and then repoint the radio. If they haven't fallen all the way to the surface, direction is probably enough to tell what City they're in."

Immediately, two threads pull free from the knot before tying themselves into two smaller, much more complicated knots. One is very dense and forms a nearly solid sphere, with four triangular peaks at what would be the corners of a tetrahedron, while the other is considerably looser, forming a cubical lattice with sets of threads running in three perpendicular directions. Then the knots moves and waver in an odd, arcane way that has an air of significance to it, before being pulled taut in two different directions. The pointy sphere goes almost straight down, while the loose cube pulls east, back across the city, and a little upwards.

<Looks like Mountain's somewhere on the ground, and Needles might be in the next city over that way,> Gold says as it unties the scrying knots and slides the threads back into the larger handle-knot.

"Oh, that's probably good news in that even if we can't get a radio message to them, a train ticket to 1st Glorious East isn't too expensive," they remark. "Although getting down to the surface would be a bit harder, but not impossible. Is Mountain straight down? If you both started falling at the same time, they might not even have hit the surface yet."

<I weigh more than Mountain, when I'm not trying to be light anyway, but I also catch a lot more air than he does unless I pack myself pretty tightly, and if he's anything like he was when I last saw him, he's probably accelerating himself towards his next wielder. Unless the ground's further away than it looks I wouldn't bet on him still being airborne.>

"The surface is just over 4 light-minutes down," they reply. "Calculating the exact time something takes to fall is a little complicated -- it takes about a day to fall from the two-times chain, but less time to fall from the four-times chain, because gravity is higher up there. I don't know exactly how much less time, though. I could work it out, maybe."

They shake their head.

"I guess that doesn't matter, though, because I don't think the train to the surface could beat," they begin to say, before being cut off by a crackling transmission from the radio.

That's what I thought! But she didn't see it like that, I guess. Anyways, that means that I definitely won't be spending time with the runners this week. Maybe that will give me a chance to catch up on my studies.

What about you, though? Is your mom still bothering you about trying to pick up knives?

"Hold on -- I have to reply to Swift and then I'll see if I can get Mountain," they tell Gold.

"Hey Swift," they say, keying the transmitter. "I'm sorry to cut this short, but something really big just dropped in my lap. I'll cypher you a letter about it for tomorrow, but I have to go deal with it. Don't worry, it's not a problem, just an unexpected opportunity. Talk to you soon!"

As soon as the message is sent, they loosen the bolt on the antenna and pivot it to point straight down along the guardwall.

"The beam is pretty tight, but if Mountain has been accelerating their fall, I would expect to still cover the whole area around the anchor," they remark. "What should the message say?"

<Hm...We probably don't want to cause too much chaos, so we shouldn't say anything that might imply there's a powerful artifact just up grabs. At the same time, if it's just one of our codewords, then if someone hears it first and then picks up Mountain later they might not remember it. Maybe something simple, that just won't mean anything to someone who isn't working with Mountain? Like, "If you're working with Mountain, contact us on this frequency as soon as possible," or something along those lines? Hopefully in a way that doesn't tell everyone where we are.>

"Not telling anyone we're in this city is tricky, because otherwise it would be hard for them to aim a reply. But Audacious Anchor of Stability is a fairly large city, so that might not be giving too much away?" they respond.

<Fair enough. If whoever's picked up Mountain decides they want to take me too, though, you should get ready to get the hell out of here as quickly as you can. If you think you can manage that, then I say let's go ahead.>

"Er. I mean, the only way into or out of the city is on a train. Unless you develop high-level teleportation or flight techniques, I guess. But I'm pretty familiar with the city, and I think I could probably sneak away onto a train pretty easily if we needed to. I already have a go bag prepped, so I could probably be on the next train at any point."

They shake their head and key the radio.

"If you're working with Mountain, contact us on this frequency at the Audacious Anchor of Stability as soon as possible," they say, repeating the message twice for redundancy.

"I can run to the East side and try to radio the Needles as well? We can take a train East and search in person, but the trip is about 6 hours one way, so it might be best to do that tomorrow after school lets out for the weekend."

<Teleportation will be a trick, especially if it's not a place that you've brought me before, but flight should be easy. And yeah, waiting until your absence won't be quite so conspicuous seems reasonable. I think Needles is going to take a while to find a wielder in the first place, they're a bit more...selective than me or Mountain, and even once they do find someone I don't think they'll get into too much trouble that quickly. Needles cares a lot about helping people, so they're usually pretty careful to not fuck around unless they're sure it'll do more good than bad.>

"Wait, wait, what? You can let people fly?" they exclaim. They realize their voice was a little loud and lower it to a less conspicuous volume. "That's amazing! How does that work? What else can you do?"

<Yeah! It's been a hot minute since someone used to fly, and I might need some practice before I'm used to how 'gravity' works here, once that's sorted you should be able to fly with me easy. As for what else I can do, it's kind of hard to narrow down! I'm proud to say I'm probably the most versatile of the three of us. If you can think of something involves 'connecting' things, even on a pretty abstract level, we can probably figure out how to do it with me.>

"That's incredible. That's ..." they trail off.

"So I know that artifacts have a single 'aspect' around which their magic is built. Like, the Chain's aspect is indestructibility -- it can't be broken. But 'connection' is such a broad thing."

They shake their head.

"I guess it makes sense if these things take some time to learn to do with your help. Would you be willing to tell me more about good introductory uses while I run us over to the other end of the city to message the Needles?"

<Sure!>

And indeed, as Scour crosses the cityscape, Gold will explain all the lowest hanging fruit among its functionalities. The really easy stuff is anything that uses Gold for things you might use a normal rope for, like how it helped anchor Scour earlier. Tying physical things together, lassoing stuff, brachiating, setting up pully systems, all sort of stuff. For that, Scour basically just needs to think about what they want Gold to do and then flick them like a whip and Gold will handle the rest. Flying, and scrying like Gold did earlier to find Mountain and Needles, and drawing on other sorts of more abstract connections to 'attract' things without a physical connection requires both some experimentation and practice to account for local variables, as well as some additional effort put into bringing Gold and Scour into closer alignment. They'll align naturally over time just from being close, and especially when Scour is actively using Gold for stuff, but alignment is itself a kind of connection, between it and its wielder, and thus Gold can help speed it along if that becomes necessary.

They laugh, ducking under an awning and into an alley to cut between two close-built houses.

"That is so broken! That you can speed up the connection that you need in order to become more locally powerful, I mean."

They shake their head, stepping out onto the borderwalk behind the guardwall.

"Next you'll tell me that you can connect me directly to the sun and let me siphon magic out of it," they say, setting the radio up on the wall and aiming it towards the next city over.

<That might not be impossible, actually! I could probably at least connect you to space that's higher up and transmit the magic from there down here, though that'll still need to wait for me to get more familiar with how magic here works.>

They fumble the radio microphone, quickly grabbing it before it can hit the cobbles.

"That would, uh," they begin. "That would be huge, if you could do that. Please let me know if I can help you figure out anything you need to know for that."

They key the radio and transmit a similar message for the Needles, and then pack things back up into their backpack.

"I mentioned I have school tomorrow, but I have time for training this evening. We could spend the time before dinner practicing and see how much progress we can make on flight, maybe? Does that sound alright?"

A thread pulls loose of the knot and waggles circularly for a moment. <Eeh. That sort of circumnavigating local limitations to grow in power really quickly was the sort of thing that really got the Dark Ones' attention, or at least that's the feeling I got while we were still with Master. We can work on it, but until we're more confident the Dark Ones aren't an issue here we should be careful about having make any really impossible progress, if that makes sense?>

The thread slides back into the knot. <As for working on flight, that seems pretty reasonable! It might be good to start with brachiation, though, unless you're already familiar with moving three-dimensionally.>

"That makes sense! I've done, like, falling drills. But that's not really the same thing," they say, weaving through the evening traffic back towards the center of the city.

"The training room is a little narrow, but it has exposed beams that would probably be good for brachiation. Our old one was bigger, but we had to settle for a smaller apartment when we moved here so that my parents could start preparing to go up-chain. They want to go up once I'm good enough to live on my own."

<Fair enough. That should be good to get started with at least. Given you've got falling drills, the first thing we should focus on is adjusting your instincts so that your first reaction during a fall is to throw out a thread to catch yourself. After that, we can work on swinging and adjusting length to build momentum. Then once you can reliably move quickly, we can move outside and see about navigating the city.>

"Okay! You said that for basic things I should throw you like a lasso -- do you think it makes sense to practice that with my off hand, so that I can keep my spear in my main hand, vice versa, or ambidextrously? Since you're handling some of the, like, holding onto things I don't know how much manual dexterity is important versus the utility of keeping a hand free," they remark.

<Doing it with your off-hand makes sense if you want to keep a hold on something else, I can handle the details as long as you provide the intent, though once I get a feel for how you hold stuff I can act as extra hands when you need it. Hm...we should also see if attaching me to your spear, to let you manipulate it after you throw it, turns out to be useful.>

"Oh, that would be neat! Maybe that would be useful for grappling, or impaling people," they suggest, turning into a less busy street and ascending a narrow set of stairs. "I normally use a melee spear with a shortbow for ranged attacks, but I have practiced with throwing spears too."

They let themself into the apartment, leaving their shoes by the door. They head down two flights of stairs to leave the radio in their room, and then run back up to the training room.

It's a large room, six meters by ten meters, with a four meter high ceiling. The floor is covered with worn mats, and the walls are painted with a landscape scene. They are marred by the occasional hole. Four training dummies sit at the opposite end of the room.

Scour lifts their training spear from the rack by the door. It is a little bit taller than they are, and balanced remarkably well for a training weapon.

"Do you want to try wrapping around my spear and then feeling as I go through some of my normal forms, and then we can experiment with you pulling it back to me, or helping with leverage, and stuff like that?"

<That or or figuring out brachiation, whichever you think will be more useful!>

They waver indecisively between weapons practice and working towards being able to fly. It's not as though they're much good with a spear anyways, not compared to their mother. But that's just a reason to be diligent.

Eventually the appeal of flight wins out, and they set the spear back in its rack.

They take a stance at one end of the room, and throw the Golden Cord up towards one of the beams. A quick pull has them swinging through the air, and then stumbling awkwardly as they come back to the ground at the wrong angle.

A few more attempts leave them with smoother landings, though, and they start experimenting with letting go and attaching to another beam in midair.

"So, is flying with you the same, uh, kind of motion?" they ask after a few minutes. "Like, does it also involve picking out places to attach to and then swinging around them? Or is this mostly useful for training, like, balance and landings and maneuvering?"

<It depends on how we develop it, and how long you're willing to take. If we have a few days, I could figure out a system that would basically like you float around like you're weightless, but the easiest system for me to implement will be something that's basically like brachiating except you'll be swinging off the sky— or the Sun, I suppose. Getting good at finding specific spots won't necessarily be directly necessary for flying, but it'll be useful to develop instincts too keep an eye out for good anchor points anyway, since it translates fairly well to doing more exotic, esoteric stuff with me later on. The balancing, landing, and maneuvering are all important too.>

"Okay, cool!"

They continue their practice, slowly working up to more elaborate maneuvers and making reasonable progress. Eventually, Scour stops their practice at the sound of the street door opening.

"Oh -- that will be Mother home for dinner. I should go get cleaned up. Are you comfortable hiding under my sleeve for dinner? I don't really want to explain you to my parents."

<Sure!> And Gold will go ahead and snake their way under Scour's sleeves on its own. Their threads are impossibly smooth, flattens out against their arm, and matches Scour's body temperature after only an instant of adjustment. Once Gold is stationary it's difficult even for Scour to tell it's there without confirming it visually.

Scour quickly washes up before making their way to the living room. Their father brings out a tray of shish kabobs made with turkey, peppers, squash, and carrot in a savory glaze and sets them on the table, next to a pot of rice.

Scour gives noncommittal answers to questions about their day in between bites.

"Yes, Mother. I was doing movement drills when you got home," they affirm. "I was hoping to go out and get some more exercise after dinner, actually."

When Scour has been sufficiently interrogated, they sit sipping their kefir while their mother tells their father about her day. Their father nods along. When their mother has reached a stopping point in her rant about grain import tariffs, they ask to be excused and hurry back downstairs to their room.

The roll up their sleeve to address the Golden Cord.

"Okay -- I think I got enough practice in to not completely embarrass myself if we try things on the streets, and I agree that I need more varied terrain to practice on. But I'm not sure what ... scale we should be avoiding attention on, I guess? Like, brachiating around will be pretty noticeable, but it won't attract that much attention compared to flying. Should I go out in disguise, do you think?"

<You know, I can hear you just fine with your sleeve down. It's fine now but if we are planning to be subtle about it we don't need to be obvious about communicating.> There's a pause, and Scour can feel Gold shift a little bit. <Yeah, I think we're aligned enough now that you should be able to talk to me just by kind of thinking at me, at least as long as we're touching. And a disguise sounds like a good idea! I can be a mask if you need one, and I can try and bulk up under your clothes a bit to make you look like you have a different build. That'd let me give you some padding, too, if you do ever fall or get into a fight.>

Scour experiences a brief flash of discomfort at the thought of the Golden Cord wrapping under their clothes like that, but pushes it away with the ease of long practice.

"Padding is definitely a good idea," they reply. "Uh ..."<Let me see what I have that will make a good disguise. Am I doing this right?>

They dig through their closet, and pull out a tight tunic and pants for an underlayer, and then a looser robe for an overlayer. From the box of winter clothes under their bed, they remove a shapeless hat, which just fits over their ears and hair if they pin it.

<And yeah -- I don't exactly have a mask, so that sounds good.>

<Just right! You'd be surprised how much trouble some people have with that.>

Then, Gold starts to unwind from Scour's arm, expanding over their underlayer, up to their shoulder, across their chest and back, down their other arm, waist, and legs, forming a third layer between the other two. Then, it fills out. Not a lot, but enough that Scour can feel something depth of cushion if they test, and noticeably alters how the overlayer flows around them.

Finally, having woven itself into a fabric, Gold slides up over Scour's face. Oddly enough, their vision is completely unobscured even though Gold didn't leave any eye-holes, nor is their breath hampered by the cloth over their mouth and nose.

<So, want to stick with the solid gold look, or figure out something else? I can mimic just about any other thread if you give me an example.>

They shiver as Gold slides over them, and then touch their hand to their face in wonder.

<Oh! Let me see,> they say, picking a cloak off of the mirror on the back of their door and tossing it on the bed. <How about mimicking the undertunic, so that it looks a bit as though you're of one piece with it?> they ask.

The figure in the mirror stares at them. They strike a pose, seeing how the robe fits over them.

<And could you, uh, maybe broaden my shoulders a little? So that I have an even more obviously different silhouette, I mean.>

Gold does so, on both accounts. <Though, I can't actually make your arms further apart. That's a bit more invasive than I can manage at the moment. Actually mucking about with their wielder's physiology is more Needles' thing anyway.>

Scour looks at the figure in the mirror for a moment too long, before tearing their gaze away and stepping lightly out into the hallway.

<No, my arms are fine where they are,> they agree. <But the robe is loose enough that I don't think there's an obvious discrepancy.>

They trot up the stairs to the front door, open it, close it, and then walk much more lightly up the next flight of stairs to the roof. It's a small roof, smaller than the rest of the footprint of the apartment and shared with one of their neighbors, but it provides a good view of some of the taller buildings to either side.

<Alright! Let's try this,> they say, throwing Gold out towards the bottom of a porch and getting a running start.

And off they will go! With Gold giving them full-body support through the padding, including a little bit of course-correction on top of Scour's own growing skill, it might actually be easier swinging between buildings than it was back in the training room, and getting even easier after every swing as a natural sort of rhythm forms.

There's also something special just about the experience of not-quite-flying through the streets. It's not anywhere near train-speeds, obviously, but moving with your own body is just something entirely else.

They steer towards the city center, where the taller buildings twine around the city's supports. Scour has never been all that good at martial skills, not compared to their classmates, but something about swinging above the city like this feels so natural that they are taken completely by surprise when a joyous laugh leaves their lips.

They circle around the academy tower, swinging off of the bell tower, before sailing out into the air above the market. They gather a loop of Gold and launch it up towards the bottom of the train station, swinging down the unobstructed length of the market's broad street. Their momentum sends them high into the air over the western end of the city, and they have to execute a careful series of loops around one of the bank buildings there to bleed off speed.

Eventually, they stumble through a slightly too fast landing on the roof of an arbitrage firm and flop onto their back.

<Oh, that was brilliant!> they say. <I don't have the words. Wow.>

They take deep, even breaths, too well trained to pant after their exertion.

<I'll get up in a moment, I just need to catch my breath. How does my form seem to you, Gold? I would appreciate any pointers you can provide.>

It's always so good to see a wielder experience the world in ways they wouldn't get the chance to otherwise.

<You're a natural, honestly! I've been correcting you a little, but after getting any given adjustment once or twice, it seems like you pick it up without even really thinking about it. Which is good, for high-speed movement you need that sort of a bone-deep intuition. Managing your momentum is good to look out for, especially once we're properly flying and doubly so when we're dealing with higher gravity, but I bet you'll get the hang of out with just a bit more practice, going from how quickly you're improving.>

Maybe this is what Mother meant when she said that if they just kept trying they would find a style that they 'click' with. Scour doesn't know whether she would disapprove of a style so restricted that it depends on a specific miraculous artifact from beyond the world, or be relieved, that Scour has finally found something that works for them. They bask in the feeling.

It's reckless, and it's going to mess up their techniques class tomorrow, but they don't care. They take the sunlight that has soaked into their bones over the course of the last day, and they collect it, pressing it into their soul. Different people use different metaphors -- some people liken it to inscribing symbols, or to aligning iron filings with a magnet. Scour thinks of it as pivoting a vast ship sailing through a dark ocean. Gentle touches that nonetheless pull their soul around to a course of their own devising.

In this case, they're not reinforcing one of their existing techniques, but nudging in an entirely new direction. Putting a metaphorical spin on their story.

"Sunlight Scouring the Unworthy From the Face of the World is good with connections," they tell the universe. It's a tiny amount of power, and a very general emphasis, too broad to be called a specific technique, but it's symbolic. A start down the path of becoming someone who can wield the Golden Cord.

The feeling of directing the sunlight is just a little different, from how it normally is. The currents of the water and the wind of that metaphorical sea are flowing just a little differently, a little more favorably. That inkling of sunlight goes just a bit further than it should. Still not enough to make it something momentous, but enough to notice.

<Oh, huh! Was that you?> they ask, pulling themself to their feet.

They look out over the edge of the roof, and start plotting out a course that focuses more on tricky corners than just on aimless wandering.

<Quite possibly! Wielders aligning with me has had a whole bunch of interesting side-benefits due to interactions with the local ontology before.>

<Huh. And you don't know exactly what they are because ... this world's magic is unique?> they clarify, shaking their arms loose.

They jump back out into space, starting to execute their planned course. It takes them looping around to approach the Academy again from the north.

<Every world is unique! Not all of them have anything they like to call magic, but they're all different from one another, even if some are more similar and some are more different. Even the worlds that are really similar on the surface have a different sort of texture to them, and since that sort of textural layer is also where alignment happens, even worlds that seem basically the same at first blush might lead my wielders to have very different experiences after they've aligned with me>

<That's really interesting,> they say, rapidly popping back and forth between two buildings. <You said you got here by being summoned -- is that how you usually move between worlds, or are there other ways?>

<Summoning is actually pretty rare! For me at least. Normally what happens is that after we get aligned enough, my wielder starts exploring other worlds with me until eventually we encounter something that we're not powerful enough to overcome and we get separated.>

<The idea of visiting other worlds sounds amazing,> Scour remarks. <One step at a time though, I guess.>

They spend another hour practicing, until the late bell chimes, before turning and heading for home. They cool down on the roof. They slip in quietly, return to their room to change, and then pop back up the stairs to open and close the front door.

They say goodnight to their parents, brush their teeth, and retreat to their room.

<Goodnight, Gold> they say. <Sleep well. Wait -- do you sleep? If you want to, uh, read my textbooks or anything I can leave the light on for you.>

<Goodnight Scour, and no, not at all really! I also don't really need light, or for the book to be open, to read, since I'm just looking at the conceptual network of meaning that the writing is an encoding of anyway. I appreciate the thought, though!>

Scour is too tired to spend long spiraling about yet another bizarre overpowered ability.

They sleep deeply, their dreams full of swinging and soaring.

The feeling of magic falling from the sun wakes them, and they swing out of bed to get dressed for the day. They exchange good mornings with the Golden Cord before stumbling upstairs for breakfast. Breakfast is yogurt with granola.

  "Study hard," their mother tells them, as they step out the door.

"Yes, mother," they reply.

The journey to the Academy is much slower at ground level, dodging around the early-morning bustle.

<What did you think of the book?> they ask the Golden Cord as they step out of the way of a messenger on a bicycle.

<It was interesting! Most of the physics is pretty familiar, it's not very far from the world where my Master first found me, and quite a few worlds I've been to since then. The anatomy stuff was also pretty familiar, especially in light of how your local magic works. It's a surprisingly common pattern for worlds, at least that I've visited. Also, having learned a bit more, I am very confident that our alignment will make you better at incorporating new concepts into your magic, even if we don't do anything cheeky like using me as a sunlight funnel.>

Scour thought that they were done feeling vaguely overwhelmed at the Golden Cord's claimed capabilities.

<Because ... being aligned with you lets me 'connect' to concepts more easily?> they ask. <That's ... I mean, there are basic techniques to make your soul more malleable that everyone learns as one of their first techniques. But they're not super effective past a certain point, because you get diminishing returns. And if you go too far, your soul can become fragile, which is its own problem.>

<Yeah, I can see how relying on your own techniques for that could lead to you getting sort of overstretched. That will probably be a lot less of a problem for you now, even if we get separated. Maybe not completely negated, but significantly mitigated, and more so the more aligned we get.>

<You,> they tell the Golden Cord, <are the best thing to ever happen to me.>

They push through the last of the crowd, and bounce up the broad steps of the academy.

<If the stuff in my textbooks was already familiar to you, I'm not sure how interesting my classes are going to be,> they warn. <First up is physical development and martial arts, because they want to hold it before the heat of the day. The rest of the day after that is lecture, though.>

<Fair enough! I'm not quite as patient as Mountain, but I also don't make a habit of constantly accelerating my own time-perception as much as possible, so I think I can handle waiting through your classes. Plus, since we can communicate silently, we can always chat when you have some spare time without giving anyone any weird ideas.>

<Sounds good! And I can pick up other books from the library at lunch if you want more to read,> they reply. <We've got a few minutes before classes start, though. Is there anything you want to chat about while we wait?>

Scour enters the Academy's courtyard, picks one of the mats laid out on the grass, and starts gently stretching.

<Not too much, at least that isn't a pretty big topic. Mostly I'm curious what you're thinking of doing, once we get the situation with Mountain and Needles figured out, but I don't know if that's the sort of conversation we can really have in just a few minutes.>

<Probably not,> they agree. <I mean, I guess my main goal has just been to live away from my parents so they can move up-chain. But what I really want to do is reform the train system. Right now, the trains have to accelerate and decelerate for every city, which makes transit times ridiculous. If they re-designed the junctions so that trains could go through without stopping -- or if they modified the inertial protections on the train to angle them on approach -- we could adopt a train schedule that would be so much faster. Eight hours to the antipodal city instead of eight days.>

<But that's not ...> they pause for a moment. <Well, my mother says that I should be focusing on my foundational techniques.>

<Man, Mountain would have a total field day with that. It's too bad he ended up down on the surface. Still, I think you probably could manage that given some time even without my help, so I'm sure it'll be possible with my help!>

They nod.

<I started looking into the train thing because I wanted a better way to keep in touch with Swift when my family moved away,> they explain. <That's actually how I got into radio, too. But the more I learned about it, the more I realized that there is just no good reason for the other cities to be as 'far away' as they are. They could be a lot more like districts of a single large city, instead of lots of separate cities. Which would also support a higher population density, because it would be easier to import food.>

The other students are trickling in around them and starting their own warmup stretches.

<Well, it certainly sounds like you're interested in making the cities more connected, which I can get behind!>

Gold is still just a bunch of thread discreetly wrapped around Scour's body at various points, so it doesn't really have any physical expression to observe, but Scour still gets the impression of that being an intentional pun.

<Yeah!> they agree. <I think a lot of people don't realize how big a difference transit times make to ...> they begin to say before being interrupted by the instructor.

The instructor walks them through the warmup, and then sets them to doing laps.

<The thing I thought we should talk about, though,> they say a few minutes later. <Is the plan for finding the Needles and Mountain. After school lets out, we have about an hour to pack before the train is due. Then there's the train ride, but once we're in 1st Glorious East, then what? Do you think I should also do the poking around there in disguise? How close will you need to be to narrow down the Needles' location?>

<Given the distances involved, probably we'll need to be more than half-way there on the train before I'd be able to be more specific than 'in that city', at least without building up a bigger dowsing array, which would be indiscreet to say the least. As for going in disguise, I think that it'd be a good idea, unless you can think of a good alibi for why you'd be taking the trip. Even with a disguise, it'd honestly probably be a good idea to try and set up an alibi.>

It's nice, not having to waste their breath to talk.

<So an alibi on short notice is going to be a little shaky, but I did already mention to my parents that I was going so they wouldn't worry. It's not that unusual to take a day trip to a neighboring city -- I last went a few months ago.>

They think for a moment.

<I think I should probably claim I'm looking to see if they have an uncommon radio part. Because everyone would believe that I would rather take a daytrip and pick through the market there just in case instead of trying to mail-order it. And if we don't come back with anything, that doesn't invalidate the alibi.>

<Sounds good to me! Might make sense to actually check out a handle of markets while we're there anyway, just to make sure there are some people over there who'll corroborate the story. Then when we're actually looking for Needles you can put on the disguise.>

<That makes sense,> they agree.

They finish with laps, and then go through a series of katas with the class. This requires more attention to form, so they lapse into silence.

Afterwards, they warm down and start to think about the plan for the rest of the day.

<Are you waterproof?> they ask. <Because we're supposed to clean up before the rest of the classes, but I don't really want to leave you in the outer room. I don't really want anyone else to see you, either. Could you become something thin and transparent like fishing line?>

<Water is no problem, and yeah.>

Sure enough, when Scour starts undressing to wash up, Gold is nowhere to be found, visually at least. Its presence doesn't even perturb the flow of the wash-water.

Scour undresses, washes, and re-dresses in record time, scrupulously avoiding looking at any of the other students. But since this is exactly their normal habit, it doesn't draw any notice.

The rest of the school day passes quickly. Lunch is noodle soup from a place just around the corner of the academy. Their mathematics instructor always keeps the class until the last bell, so they hang back a moment to let the press of students clear.

The trip back to their house isn't too bad, because the sun is still out and people who can manage it are indoors away from the heat. Even with the radiators that hang below the city at night, the temperature never quite gets down far enough, which means that afternoons are always baking.

<So I figure I need to pack fare, a change of clothes, the disguise, a dinner, my multimeter, and a battery -- for testing putative radio components. Does it sound like I'm missing anything?> they ask. <Oh! And some books for reading, maybe.>

<I can probably manage the disguise myself, honestly, doing something similar as last night, which might be better to avoid suspicion on the off chance someone checks your bags. And you don't need to bring any books that you wouldn't plausibly read on your own, I don't get bored that quickly.>

<Okay, cool,> they agree.

Their mother isn't home yet, so they breeze through packing. They pull out a well-worn dufflebag to pack things in, placing their multimeter and a box of rice and vegetable in last for easy access.

They debate for a bit over books. Because they do read a lot, but suddenly the question of how much would it be unsuspicious for them to expect to read feels a lot more complicated. Eventually, they settle on an electrical engineering reference book, a partially-filled notebook, and a novel that they checked out of the library but hadn't started yet.

"Bye Dad!" they call as they head back out. "I'll be back tomorrow."

The heat hits them like a brick, coming out of their relatively cool apartment. They hurry back towards the city center, before veering north towards the bottom of the anchor chain.

They trudge up the stairs to the platform where the chain-climber lands, and then step into its car along with the rest of the people bound for the train platform. As the climber starts back up again, the city spreads out beneath them. Scour can't help but compare it to the view of the city they experienced last night, and find it lacking.

They turn their eyes to the train platform above them, a huge elongated structure. No trains are in evidence right now, but the chain climbers are busily hauling loads up from the storerooms beneath the city and depositing them along the length of the platform.

When the chain-climber reaches the top, they disembark and queue for their ticket. The train only goes one place, and so they only sell one kind of ticket. Scour drops their coins into the slot, and receives a small paper ticket in return.

"Train's in twenty minutes," the ticket-seller informs them. "Next!"

They pick their way along the edge of the platform, staying out of the way of the workers loading carts. Outgoing goods get lined up along one side, and empty marked squares for incoming goods line the other. They pick a bench, and settle out of the way to wait.

<For the future, if you bring a heat-sink with you, or once we're aligned enough that I can reliably connect to distant locations pretty quickly, I can connect you to it, and that might help you resist the heat.>